She’s battled cancer 3 times and a brain aneurysm. And yet, Courtney Clark keeps a positive outlook on life. The author will speak in Springfield at the Women’s Power Lunch Against Cancer, sponsored by the Simmons Cancer Institute, on April 12.
On the heels of her second diagnosis, the brain aneurysm was discovered.
“There’s a competing feeling of ‘Are you kidding me? Haven’t I been through enough? But then realizing if I hadn’t had the cancer, I never would have had the scan that doctors to find this brain aneurysm,” she said.
Clark admits to having plenty of self-pity during that time. She calls that normal for people who are struggling to deal with difficult circumstances, whether health-related or otherwise.
It all comes down to perspective, a theme Clark drives home to readers and live audiences.
“I was having a conversation with a woman whose friend had lost a spouse”, Clark explained. “What she really wants to tell this person is at least you got a chance to say goodbye. I have these other friends and they lost their spouses in an accident and they didn’t get to say goodbye. You can’t hear that from someone whose spouse is still healthy and present.”
Clark maintains people going through challenges need to reach out to people, but to be clear what they are looking for in terms of support.
“Sometimes the people closest to you in life may not want you to be sad and suffer and will say things like ‘It’s not so bad, it will be O.K., buck up,” she said. “You may need to search for someone outside your inner circle for a person who has been through something similar.”
“When we connect to other people, that allows us to find perspective….to solve complicated problems we may not have been up against before.”
